


Tick Tock

by honeynoir (bracelets)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-28
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-08 18:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bracelets/pseuds/honeynoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mels, growing up in Leadworth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tick Tock

No parents. No parents because of the Doctor.

No Melody for her parents because of the Doctor.

So she changed that.

 

 

_This she knows: she’s larger than life._

She _probably_ shouldn’t have run away. She _probably_ shouldn’t have found Mummy and Daddy. Oh, but she’d wanted to. If they couldn’t come to her…

 

 

Amelia and Mels, lying top-of-head to top-of-head on a carpet that smells like dust and cat, staring at the paper stars sellotaped to the ceiling.

“And then,” says Amelia, “the people and the whale lived happily ever after.”

Mels holds the phone box to her chest, pokes at the loose bit of carton in the corner. “What about the Doctor?”

“He travelled somewhere else. You’re not listening!”

“Do you think he would take me with him?”

“Of course he would. That’s what he does. We’ll go together.”

Mels laughs. “Poor Doctor.”

 

 

Amelia stops moving her hairbrush in mid-stroke, stares into her garden.

Mels has to break a lamp to get her to turn away.

 

 

_When she dreams, her timestream is a teeming, sprawling thing, punctuated by spacemen._

She can see what Leadworth was like without her, and what it was like without Augustus Pond, and what it was like without stars; she can see the ripples she’s causing, and she can see what it’ll be like when she’s gone.

 

 

She doesn’t like it when Amelia dresses Rory up. She doesn’t like the raggedy shirt, she doesn’t like the bowtie, and she doesn’t like the hessian-doubling-as-tweed.

She tolerates playing with the dolls; she gets to be the phone box.

 

 

_She can wait; has to. Wait for him to drag his lazy bones back to her Mummy._

Mels breaks one of the dolls. It’s the newest one, in real tweed and Amelia’s favourite, and she snaps its tiny neck.

Amelia is so very angry, and Mels promises it was an accident (it wasn’t really) and that she’ll never do it again (and she means it).

 

 

_She can do anything and she can do it well._

She lands on her wrist; it bends and hurts and doesn’t do what she wants it to do.

Above, leaves move in the wind, mocking her. _More practice, more practice, more practice._

Rory does his best, with a dry twig and his scarf, while Amelia blows. When it’s done it hurts more, not less. Mels doesn’t care; everything will be fine in the morning, like there was never anything wrong with her at all.

She defeats the tree, soon enough.

 

 

The Head Teacher straightens her glasses and asks, “And how can he travel in time?”

Mels folds her arms. “Because he’s got a time machine, stupid.”

 

 

Rory is very good at drawing swords.

After falling off Mrs Poggit’s roof (and climbing it was thoughtless, in retrospect), Mels hands him a pen and requests a gladius on her (annoyingly unnecessary) cast.

The time there’s a rumour at school saying he cried a little when he read about the fall of Troy, Mels punches everyone who laughs. Twice. (Except for Amy.)

 

 

Amelia’s fourth psychiatrist and Mels’ first and last tells Mels he understands her, and gets as far as saying, ”I think you need someone to stop you,” before she stabs him in the hand with his own pen.

She can’t be stopped, and she can’t be held down, and she can’t be reasoned with.

 

 

She lives in a vacuum. She spends as much time with Amy and Rory as possible, mouths along to old films, has what fun she can. This particular life, and Leadworth, is just background noise, after all.

 

 

As the Doctor slips Amy’s mind more and more often, Mels thinks about him again and again and againagainagain until her mind is turning in on itself.

 

 

_People are slow and she’s quick._

Her hair still smells like award-winning roses and exhaust when Rory hands her his jacket and Amy takes her arm. Mels hasn’t thought about the Doctor for hours.

In unison, they berate her for grinning; and she laughs.

 

 

_Tick tock…_

She knows how he’s going to die, and she practises on all of the boys Amy likes, and all of the girls that glance at Rory.

 

 

“And that’s me,” she says, pulling out her gun, “Out of time.”  



End file.
